[Vision2020] presbyterian form vs. Presbyterian Church

[DonaldH675 at aol.com]

Visionaries:
Please delete this email if you are not interested in a discussion of Doug  
Wilson's claim to be a Presbyterian.  Since I will not respond directly to  any 
post on Dale Courtney's blog <right-mind.us> because of  the type of posters 
he allows to enter his cyberspace home - I am  forced to fall back on the 
hospitality of First Step and 2020.  I apologize  for that.
R.H.
 
Dale:
A short analogy is perhaps in order.  I love to watch Professional  Bull 
riding.  I know the "inside" lingo, I know how to score a ride, I own  a couple of 
pair of blue jeans, I can discuss bull blood-lines and past  performances of 
the riders. I know a lot about the PBR  - but all that  knowledge, all that 
admiration, and even all my respect for the both the riders  and the bulls, does 
not make me a member of the PBR.  I don't  ride bulls I watch other people 
ride bulls in the same way that Doug Wilson et  al. aren't Presbyterians just 
because they copied Presbyterian church  governance.
 
Please share with interested readers the Presbyterian (capital P)  session 
that Doug Wilson, or Christ Church, is accountable to,  including any in the 
relatively comprehensive list that you supplied on  your blog site.  
 
Doug's desperate grasp of the Presbyterian life-buoy was undoubtedly  
intended to provide some level of recognizable legitimacy and oversight.   Doug 
probably is unhappy about vague references to Neo-Nazis connections in  the 
headline of the opinion piece.  I'm willing to bet that most, if not  all,  main 
stream Presbyterians share the same repulsion at being  connected to Doug Wilson 
and Christ Church.    But let's  rely on Doug's own words to substantiate (or 
not) his claim to being a  Presbyterian.
 
The following is a selection of a transcript made of a Idaho  Board of Tax 
Appeals on November 25, 2002.   The initials GD stand for  Greg Dickison, the 
initials DW indicate Doug Wilson.
 
 
"GD:     “Is that when the  church was first established?” 
DW:    “No, the church was  established in 1975 and began meeting on the Lord’
s Day weekly for worship.  Another gentleman, Lowell Carlson was the minister 
for the first year and a half  or so.  He took a position in  another town, 
moved away and I was the song leader at the time and became the  person 
responsible for preaching, presenting the sermons, when he left so for  all but a 
year and a half or so in  Christ  Church’s history I’ve been  minister.” 
GD:     The name was originally  Community Evangelical Fellowship. 
DW:    Actually no.  The original name was Faith Fellowship  but then that 
was confused with another church in  Pullman so we changed the name, I  forget 
when to Community Evangelical Fellowship which is what it was for the  majority 
of our history and then a few years ago we changed the name to  Christ  
Church.”  
GD:     “Do you remember  exactly when that was when that name was changed?” 
DW:    “No, not precisely, it’s  within the last two or three years.” 
GD:     I believe that over the  years the governance of Christ  Church is 
evolved, if you will.”  
DW:    “Yes, that would be a fair  statement. 
GD:     “How has it currently  governed?” 
DW:    “It is currently governed by  a session of elders,  Our form of  
church government is presbyterian, so we have a session of elders which  
corporately is the highest authority in the life of the local church.  I serve as one of 
the elders, there are  about thirteen, I have to count, thirteen elders, and 
I am the elder responsible  for the ministry of the Word and sacrament, but 
there, we have ruling elders,  teaching elders and ministers. Three different 
kinds of elders but corporately  they come together.  We meet weekly  at the 
Christ  Church building, we meet weekly from  6 and 7:30 Thursday mornings and 
make  governance decisions, pastoral decision, liturgical decisions [short 
phrase that  is unclear]”   
GD:     “How long has there  been a regular session of elders that’s 
overseen the church?” 
DW:    “We didn’t have an  established government when I began preaching in 
1977.  We didn’t have any established  government at all.  I attribute this  
to the fact that it was the 70s.  [laughter]  It was a strange  time for all of 
us.  But we were  just sorta out there.  We were  meeting on Sundays and 
preaching and singing doing what churches do but we  didn’t have any established 
constitution, confession of faith, church  government.  I began, I was the de  
facto minister,  I began a meeting  of responsible brothers, we called them, 
you know people who began making  decisions we began making decisions that 
group evolved into our elders.  We were pretty young to be elders at the  time.  
It evolved into a group of  elders probably within the first few years so by 
the early 80s we were  essentially at the local level functioning under the kind 
of government that we  have now.” 
GD:     “How many elders are  there currently?” 
DW:    “About 13, I have to go back  and count 
GD:     “And there are also  deacons that that help in the governance?” 
DW:    “Correct.  There is a board of deacons and there’s  a board of 
elders.  The elders are  responsible for the spiritual, pastoral, liturgical life of 
the church.  The deacons are responsible for the  financial, practical, 
physical side of the things that need to be taken care  of.  So, Eric Burnett, our 
Treasurer  is one of the deacons, so the financial affairs, the budget is 
prepared by the  deacons.  The elders approve the  budget, but the deacons 
prepare, do the research for the annual budget.  We have a deacon responsible for  
computer services,.  He’s the  exorcist,  [laughter]  We have deacons 
responsible for the  computers, the deacons fund, for helping families who are strapped, 
physical  services and practical services are overseen by the deacons, and 
then the  broader oversight is done by the elders. 
GD:     “I take it as the  minister of Christ  Church you have studied other  
churches and church government and how that functions?” 
DW:    “Correct. Yes” 
GD:     “Is there anything  usual about this form of government or is this a 
common presbyterian form used  by other churches?” 
DW:    “This is a common  presbyterian form of government.  Broadly speaking 
there is three different kinds of church  government:  One is independent, the 
 other is presbyterian, and the third is episcopal.  So Roman Catholic and 
Episcopal Church  [unclear] so obviously, Presbyterian Church is presbyterial in 
their operation  and that means that our presbyterian form of government 
means that we are  connected to a broader set of churches.  So there are, we 
belong to the Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals  that’s the CRE.  There are 19 
 churches involved in that presbytery.  We have an annual presbytery meeting 
each church sends two delegates to  presbytery.  This last year  presbytery 
was in Bellvue in October.  Next year presbytery will be in  Houston.  So we are 
connected to a national  presbytery and our form of government, with some 
adjustments here and there is  typically presbyterian.” 
The long and  short of it is Doug Wilson has grafted a form of governance 
that he likes, the  presbytery, onto Christ Church and the CREC churches.  Who  
cares?  I ask again, what session of any of the branches of the  Presbyterian 
Church you mentioned, is Christ Church or Doug Wilson a member  of?  Oh, and 
now that I think about it, how 'bout answering this  question too.  Which 
session of the Presbyterian Church has declared Doug  Wilson a heretic? 
Rose  Huskey 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20050813/90451a9e/attachment.htm